London cops fuel new taser gun fears

The London Metropolitan Police is to increase the number of officers carrying controversial powerful stun guns by more than 50 percent, raising serious concerns that ordinary people could be hit by tasers for trivial offences.

An inquiry by the London assembly has found that the police are to increase taser-armed officers by 500 to 1,300 in London, that is, 40 officers in every borough.

This comes as the number of incidents the police have used tasers increased by 60 percent to 1,371 cases in the year to March 2011.

Meanwhile, Metropolitan Police’s own figures show half of all people tasered in 2012 were black, while mental health patients and other ethnic minorities are also a frequent target of police stun guns.

The 50,000-volt shock guns were initially only handed to officers with a license to carry guns but now officers with a mere three-day training can carry and use the controversial weapon.

The situation has sparked fears that the police are giving a free rein to officers to use the weapon inappropriately, especially after last year attacks on a man with Alzheimer’s and on a mentally-ill man.

Amnesty International has expressed its deep concern about the police move and the apparent change of police policy into one that allows more abuse of a weapon that can inflict “severe pain at the push of a button, often without leaving marks”.